Sustainability As a family-owned company, Festo is financially independent and socially committed to acting for the long term in terms of generations of workers, not just in terms of financial years. The company’s overriding objectives include the wellbeing of its workforce, including the provision of a healthy environment and extending the boundaries of education and innovation. Another key focus for Festo is on sustainability. Thomas Böck, Chairman of the Management Board at Festo SE & Co. KG, explains that sustainability begins with Festo’s product development. “Sustainability is an integral part of our corporate strategy – this is quite a broad topic and, at Festo, we have placed a clear emphasis on reducing CO2.” Julia Bikidis, Project Manager for CO2 Reduction in the product portfolio at Festo, adds: “A major focus here is the material efficiency of our products. We consider these in a multidimensional way: We use lightweight construction principles to reduce the amount of material used for product manufacturing. By recycling residual materials, we make better use of the amount of material used. A targeted selection of materials from optimised supply chains or from sustainable raw materials – taking into account quality, cost and availability – also increases material efficiency.” As of last year, all Festo’s buildings in Germany as well as its production and logistics sites around the world have been CO2 neutral. All other locations around the world will follow by 2026 at the latest. Festo’s Sustainability Report covers the company’s sustainability roadmap and current regime. Blue World One initiative highlighted in Festo’s sustainability report is called Blue World. The question of how to treat our planet presents humanity with unprecedented challenges. The ability to securely supply and support the world’s population in the face of demographic change seems to be an insoluble conflict with the protection of our natural resources. Festo deals with these conflicting priorities with its knowhow in automation technology and technical education and anchors them in its Blue World approach. With the technology fields of pneumatics, electrical automation, process automation, digitisation and artificial intelligence, Festo sets out to enable the transformation of industrial production into an efficient and more climate-friendly way of manufacturing, such as in the field of biotechnology. With its human-centered approaches, it aims to make life easier for people in the workplace, support healthcare with its LifeTech technologies and enable people to learn and use new technologies efficiently with Festo learning systems. With Festo’s resource-conserving approaches, it uses automation technology to support structural change in certain sectors, such as the automotive industry and shows how automation technology. Sustainability strategy Since 2020, Festo’s sustainability strategy has been based on the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). As an individual company, it cannot have an impact on all 17-SDGs, “We do, however, prioritise a number of ongoing focus areas,” explains, Arian Aryanfard, Festo’s Customer Solutions Design Manager Technical Services. “As an automationleading company specialising in pneumatic and electropneumatic products, Festo and its customers rely on air as a power source. Consequently, a primary objective outlined in our 17SDGs strategy focuses on minimising air consumption and CO2 emissions, which stands at the core of Festo’s commitment to sustainability. We design and assemble bespoke systems and solutions and are keenly focused on making these offerings as sustainable as possible. We are also keen to encourage our customers to concentrate more on sustainability alongside us.” With this in mind, March 2020 saw the Management Board of Festo SE & Co. KG first establish a detailed sustainability strategy, which has since been regularly updated. In 2023, the sustainability strategy and the corporate strategy was even more closely integrated. An important decision in 2022 was to bring Sustainability begins with responsible product development 66 www.bfpa.co.uk Festo outlines its sustainability strategy, explaining how it can help customers to save energy and optimise their supply chains. Arian Aryanfard: “A primary objective outlined in our strategy focuses on minimising air consumption and CO2 emissions, which stands at the core of Festo’s commitment to sustainability.”
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